Here are match reports for Saturday's North Midd matches plus the 4s rare Sunday match. Pics courtesy of Pete Hollman and 1s Report courtesy of Mark Williams

Match Reports for 29th Aug 2020
North Midd 1st XI vs Ealing (Away)
North Midd 115/10 from 40 overs
Ealing 116/3 from 38 overs
Ealing win by seven wickets

Dark clouds scudded across the sky threatening rain throughout the day, and there was a chill wind to accompany them. Rain was forecast to come in later in the afternoon, so it was a question of how much cricket could be fitted in. The Ealing ground had a soaking the previous evening, but the pitch had been covered. The outfield was therefore sluggish and whilst the pitch was dry on top, there was plenty of moisture underneath, and it played slow all day. For the first time this autumn, there was a wintry chill in the air. Luke Hollman and Joe Cracknell had the honour of being selected in the Middlesex 14 for their T20 at Lord’s, but also the frustration of watching from the sidelines as 13/14th men, as opposed to playing at Corfton Road.
Many congratulations to Liam O’Driscoll, who was also missing, and his wife on the healthy birth of Max earlier in the week. They were replaced by Matt Cracknell (‘keeper), Alex MacQueen and Will Vanderspar. Ealing were almost at full strength and welcomed veteran all-rounder Ahmed Elech back for his first League game of the season, as well as Robbie White from Middlesex to add the icing on the cake to a talented squad. James Parslow won the toss and batted, which was clearly the correct decision. The Midd sent Evan Flowers and Ollie Tikare out to open the batting. The former played one of the shots of the day when he off-drove the first ball of the innings on the up through wide mid-off. It looked for all the world that he was determined to play a major innings as he played out the rest of the over, but he drove the third ball of the next over off the back-foot straight into extra-cover’s bread basket off the middle. A shot that would have flown square on a hard, Australian pitch ended up lofted off a slow English quagmire (5-1;5;1.3). A couple of overs later Tikare was bowled through the gate, caught on the crease (7-2:0;4.6). This brought the vastly experienced Parslow and Vanderspar together, and they dug in to weather the storm. There appeared no alarms as they both got in and became more fluent, and the score had reached 38-2 from 14 overs when the former drove loosely with his head in the air and was bowled (38-3;16;15.1) and in the next over, the latter was castled via inside edge and boot attempting an expansive square drive (42-4:15;15.3); both shots were unworthy of their perpetrators, both were attempting unnecessary aggression on a pitch where it paid dividends to play straight and give the good ball the respect it deserved.
Throughout, seamers Ensom (10-1-29-2), Russell (6-1-7-1) and Ladd-Gibbon (6-2-17-1) had pitched the ball up consistently and bowled straight, but none of them was moving the ball extravagantly. This situation brought the best out of Gareth James and Alex MacQueen who got stuck in and rebuilt the innings, playing as their predecessors had not. Occasional boundaries followed and they had added 35 in 12 overs when MacQueen attempted to increase the tempo and lofted a drive to mid-on with 22 overs still remaining (77-5;17;28.1). A couple of overs later James’ brave innings ended when he was caught on the crease and palpably LBW to Palmer, and the soft under-belly of the Midd lower middle order was exposed. They tried, but were no match for Palmer who had settled into an effective spell, bowling straight to a full length, who ended with figures of 9.3-2-30-5. He trapped Tom Nicoll (96-7;5;34.1) and Bamber (105-9;8;36.1) LBW and bowled Hugh Teesdale (115 all out; 3;38.3), and Elech had Cracknell caught at slip (105-8;5;35.3). This left the potentilly dangerous Max Harris undefeated on 7 from 4 balls, which was a waste. Ealing had applied pressure from the start, and maintained it throughout the innings with accurate bowling, moving the ball just a little each way.
The visitors’ score looked 35 below par and they committed the cardinal sin of being bowled out with over 10 overs remaining; they needed an excellent start to have any chance. The talented Ollie Wilkin bats just one way these days: a full-on aggressive approach from the start. From Bamber’s first over he swung and missed three times before attempting a fourth and losing his off stump (0-1:0:0.6). Encouraged by this, the bowler’s next two overs were maidens, and he bowled with pace, aggression and accuracy in the best spell that he has bowled for the Midd whilst I have been watching (10-4-12-3). White was stroke-less in a 22 ball innings before being trapped LBW (33-2;4;12.3), and Elech, who had countered with some powerful attacking strokes fell similarly (34-3;26;15.2). At this point, the game was anyone’s as Graves and Ensom knuckled down to rebuild. Teesdale was unusually expensive (5-1-28-0), but Max Harris, at times inclined to bowl too short, immediately settled onto a full length with pace which maintained the pressure. In his third over he had Ensom dropped in the gully from a hard, low chance, and in his fifth, the same batsman edged to slip, but the ‘keeper dived across and spilled the catch; Harris finished with excellent figures (7-1-14-0): he deserved better. Five overs later, with the score 66-3, Graves pulled Vanderspar hard straight at mid-wicket, who got both hands to the ball but could not hold on.
With persistent light drizzle now falling for the rest of the game, and therefore bowling with a damp ball., the visitors had missed the boat, and struggled to apply any further pressure. Both batsmen moved to a higher gear and looked entirely in control and achieved their target in the 34th over, adding 82 with increasing confidence. The bowlers persevered manfully, but could not make any further inroads: Vanderspar (4-0-16-0), MacQueen (6-0-28-0), Nicoll (2-0-12-0). There was one moment of comedy: from a free-hit delivery, the batsman was struck low on the pads right in front and there was a vociferous appeal; fortunately umpire Patel was awake and declined it.
This crucial victory for the hosts kept them 1 point ahead of Teddington at the top of the table, but they play each other next week; if Ealing win their last two games they are champions. For North Middlesex, this was a game of missed opportunities: four of the first six got themselves out on a pitch and against an attack where such luxuries would be punished, and they were bowled out with 20% of their overs unused. At the crux of the game, they dropped three catches, and had any one of them been accepted, Ealing’s similarly vulnerable middle order would have been exposed with at least 50 runs still required. It was a case of what might have been.
Here are the beaten team leaving the field -

North Midd 2nd XI vs Ealing (Home)
North Midd 205/7 from 45 overs
Ealing 206/3 from 40 overs
Ealing win by seven wickets

NMCC vs Ealing has produced some cracking fixtures in the past. A couple of last-ball wins for the Midd, with boundaries being hit to secure valuable points or victory being taken from the jaws of defeat with a flurry of late wickets. It is a fixture which holds a sense of anticipation and this was very much the case as Ealing travelled to Park Road. It was a green, spongey wicket and on losing the toss the Midd were put in. Enter George Garrett, fresh from his promotion to aggressive opener and looking confident in that position, and Ben Owen, who in years gone by has terrorised the Ealing openers with fast hostile bowling – but today joins George at the top of the order. Some clean hitting down the ground coupled with rotating the strike gave us some early impetus, however the pitch was nibbling and George (22) fell to a decent delivery which snicked the shoulder of his bat on its way to the keeper. Shirley joined Ben (22) until the latter also went, caught by the keeper attempting to hoist a ball into the kids’ creche. With both openers having played fluently on a tough track, we had a start to build on. Enter Nursey, promoted to a higher position than in previous weeks and talking of a slight tinkering in his stance. 1st nut a big snick to the keeper as it moved away from him, however as Rev signalled a no-ball and a sigh of relief rippled through the side. Post this, Nursey played a chanceless knock, racking up 72* which included two straight bombs (putting holes in the sightscreen) and a swept bomb. He rotated the strike well and put the bad balls away, illustrating how to play on a tough batting track. He was aided by Shirls (23), Manan (15) and Tom (22) to get us up to 205 off our 45 overs. Great to see our Captain back in the runs, getting us to above par on this particular deck.
With Wellsy back in the mix, he charged in from the top end getting the ball to pop, bowling tightly and was unlucky for a few edges not to go to hand. Elliot from the other end beat the bat a number of times but struggled with his consistency and allowed a few more four balls to be taken to build the pressure up-top. He eventually snuck a yorker through the openers defences to claim an LBW in the 8th over before attempting to prevent a cleanly hit straight drive going for four with the top of his foot (not the cleverest) and was replaced by Nursey from the bottom end, Smithy from the top. With the Ealing number 2 playing well for his 67 (Caught Wells, Bowled Nursey) and the Midd struggling to bowl in partnerships and build pressure from both ends, Ealing’s 3,4 & 5 ultimately got in and brought the chase home with five overs left. Wells bowled tightly on his comeback (0-32 from 9) and Nursey (2-32 of 9) kept the pressure on taking some key wickets. Ealing batted well to chase over 200 runs on a tricky wicket. However, it was a day in which we could have been more consistent with the ball and made it tougher for them. It was great to see us put on some runs this week and if we can harness that next week with the bowling and fielding of last week (Stanmore) then we know we can put pressure on Osterley (away) and come away with a win. Let’s keep the effort high for the final two games of the season and get some momentum going into 2021.

North Midd 3rd XI vs Ealing (Home)
Ealing 110/10 from 28 overs
North Midd 111/8 from 26.1 overs
North Midd win by two wickets

As this year’s truncated Middlesex Cricket League Third Tier Division One trickles gradually towards its mildly tedious conclusion, the weather, too, appears to have waived any enthusiasm it might otherwise have wished to show in late August. After a week of quite miserable garbage, it did – at least – opt to stop raining for long enough for a little bit of cricket to break out on Saturday. It was the August Bank Holiday weekend, meaning it was also a year to the week since Osterley-gate. Happy anniversary, everyone. What an absolutely exceptional farce that was. And thus, it was a pleasure to welcome Ealing Cricket Club, a pleasant bunch full of children and nice young people, for their first sojourn to Fortress N8 8JJ since a surprise relegation in 2018. They rolled into a drying Park Road to be greeted by a mildly soggy deck and a moist outfield, before electing to bat on the very basic – and entirely justifiable – third XI premise that “it probably won’t matter anyway”, in the words of the visiting captain. The Mighty Midd would also have opted to bat because opting willingly to chase would have been almost criminally negligent, such has been the absolute omnishambles that we have gradually sculpted into our own artform. But we would be left with little choice here. And with Capitan Cracknell in the Netherlands for a week to study the work of Vincent van Gogh, what a side they would field in his absence, under the stewardship of Friend: Golders Green Greenidge, Frais Prince of Bel-Air, Cardiff Akmal, H. Parmar, Nantie Hayward, Starke-Yorkey, V. Parmar, Wild Thing, Doctor Cover Drive, Zorro, Sir Terry Bogan. And quite frankly, the game had a fairly extraordinary start. Ealing opener T. Good hit the first ball of the match out of the ground. It really was quite a thing. And for Zorro Smith, it would later be deemed to be quite a fine. The match was one ball old, and that ball was in Calthorpe. Two deliveries later, a wicket had fallen, alas. A man, mysteriously titled in the scorebook only as M.R, was well caught by 2008 national champion Yorke-Starkey at the seventeenth attempt. Now, as the old saying goes, good players go twice. And thus, living up to his surname, T. Good hit the first ball of the second over for six more runs, this time flying into Yvette’s barbecue tent, fortunately missing both our tea-time burgers and Yvette herself. It had by now become clear that we would do well to err away from feeding his hitting zone. Meanwhile, El Zorro – still not having worn his facemask since being on-driven by a Richmond child – had struck someone on the hand with a ball that popped off a length, before hitting the same chap on the toe from the exact same spot. Fruity. He was sent on his way via the express service to Plumb City. The lad who whacked it miles soon followed, attempting to whack CYS into Meghna, whose chicken korma had this writer’s intestines on a 48-hour rollercoaster last week. Instead, he could only pick out Bel-Air, who took a good catch. Caitlyn Kenna then entered the wickets enclosure, forcing the Ealing skipper to edge behind to Akmal. A genuine wicket, which is not allowed, of course. Fine. Kenna then knocked over someone's middle stump. Another fine. This left him on a second hat-trick in a week. Alas, he isn’t as good as Supermarket Sweep’s Liam O’Driscoll and thus, while Dr. Dale took two in seven days, Kenna ballsed up both of his opportunities. At least, however, this one wasn’t cut away for four. Baby steps. Meanwhile, another person was playing and missing fairly regularly. He had been dropped at short cover, but we will not go into that, for these things happen. Soon afterwards, however, there was a quite remarkable runout. Genuinely, scenes. Downing, deliberately fumbling one of 19 wides sent down in 27 overs, retrieved the ball and hurled the stumps down at the bowler’s end. Unusually spectacular; a madness. The throw went through the batsman’s legs as he sought in vain to make his ground. William Hill were offering odds of 12,000,000/1. Even then, a pound placed was a pound lost. Once all had recovered from this particular moment, the lad who kept on playing and missing missed another one. This time, it hit his off-stump. Adieu, mon ami. A similar delivery proved sufficiently useful to remove his replacement, at which point a partnership began to fashion itself at 70 for 8. Yorke-Starkey, who is far too good for this level, got bored of bowling out-swingers, so sent down an 11-ball over, including one particular beamer that smashed into the hand of Ealing’s opening bowler. When this particular over finally finished, Doctor Maidens was allowed to continue spinning his glorious web. He went for six runs in his seven overs, but had to wait until his sixth over for a much-needed wicket – the No.8 was adjudged to be leg before. I can’t remember how the last wicket fell, but I believe Frais Prince was the bowler. And so, 111 to win. Not many, but also more than enough to make this an interesting afternoon on an unusually difficult Mighty Threes track. This soon became an afternoon of some quite horrid tension. Friend, without partner-in-crime Owen who had been summoned for higher honours, edged behind having dispatched a customary pair of bombs. Frais followed, slicing to backward point, before Harsh was adjudged to have been struck on the pad. Adjudging, by the way, is a great word. 23 without loss had become 29 for 3, which then became 36 for 5. Al aboard, all aboard. Tickets, please. Maybe, we’re just cursed: different captain, different batsmen, chasing something entirely manageable at a ground where we don’t tend to lose, the NM3 Victory was heading for its iceberg. By this point, it was drizzling a little and batting had become somewhat impossible. Yorke-Starkey was the victim of a Saturday Seed, cutting him in half and knocking his off-stump over – a wicket doused in irony, with the hand he had earlier pinned with a beamer ultimately cleaning him up. Hayward fell in similar circumstances, having battled hard. A cracking partnership followed between debutant Vijesh and Cardiff Akmal. There weren’t many runs added, but it was a critical period of play that took much of the sting and energy out of the opening bowlers. When they both fell, however – both adjudged lbw and without any reviews remaining, the Midd were once more staring down a pretty deep barrel. But cometh the hour, cometh Wild Thing Bridgland and Doctor Andre. Given everything, a terrific stand. The pair deserved to see it home together. There was a final brief scare when Bridgland chipped to midwicket, leaving it to Doctor Rusty Gate to hit the winning runs. From 65 for 7, this was an excellent win against a side who had the better of the conditions in the end. Shoutouts to Downing (11), Hayward (6), Vijesh (7), Bridgland (17) and Dre (18), whose efforts in really taxing conditions were properly top drawer. Those contributions don’t seem like much but taking overs out of the legs of the opening bowlers was as vital as run-scoring at one point. Once it started to rain, everyone fell to a ball with their name on it – CYS especially. With all that in mind, a fine win. Louis, once again, outrageously good in the field and setting the bar for all those around him. Good fun.

North Midd 4th XI vs Shepherds Bush (Away)
Shepherds Bush 162 All Out
North Midd 163-5
North Midd Won by 5 wickets

A rare fixture this week for the 4s as the bank holiday left the middies travelling to Shepherds Bush for a Sunday fixture. To describe the standard as Sunday cricket would be kind. Another coin flip lost & we were sent out to bowl. Fresh from 4-11 on debut last week Dan Gallan was handed the new ball and certainly didn’t disappoint. A wicket maiden to start as middle stump was ripped clean out the ground 0-1. At the other end Josh F didn’t quite start so well with his first ball missing the track altogether. There were complaints of hungover, headaches & dodgy hamstrings from Friendy to excuse himself but he eventually settled and the middies started to find some good areas, so much so that it took until the 10th over of the game for their other opener to get off the mark, AT would have been proud.

Dan bowling splendidly, despite being launched for what was definitely the largest bomb over mid off 4s cricket has ever seen and got his revenge as their number 3 chipped one straight to Jonny at mid on who took it well under a high ball to leave them 25-2 and soon ripped their poor openers middle peg out again for a painful 4 as SheBu fell to 33-3.
It was at this point things began to get strange. Arj managed a suspected broken finger behind the stumps so rather than Jonny coming on to bowl as our 3rd seamer was forced to strap on the pads and take the gloves. Arise Alec Dawson for your first full over for the Midd: Ball 1- No Ball Ball 2- Wide off the track Ball 3- Play & miss Ball 4- No Ball Ball 5- 4 Ball 6- Regulation drop at slip from AT Ball 7- No ball Ball 8- Wide Ball 9- Friendy loudly appealed from point for a ball the batsman missed by a foot Ball 10- Wide Ball 11- inexplicable play & miss Ball 12- play & miss to beat the bat 1 over for 10 in the scorebook just didn’t do it justice but AT was swiftly brought into the attack. Half trackers ensued and the dismissed SheBu batsmen must have been thinking what they had done to deserve an inswinger off Dan whilst their mates got to play against this. At the other end Friendy did manage to get a wicket for his trouble again taking middle stump out of the ground as the skipper made him bowl his full 12 on the trot, finishing with 1-42 before pulling his hamstring a few overs later.
Rousing support on the boundary from Si Richard seemingly inspired Arj who returned to the field dodgy hand and all as the skipper had to work out how to hide 1 hand vs a pulled muscle amongst the troops. He also had the job of needing to bowl himself and after Arj told their number 6 “All he does is bowl straight full bungers” the skip duly obliged with one half way up middle which was softly chipped back to him for a c&b to open his burglary swag bag for the day. 93-5 and out strode their captain and the battle of the skippers was on. Knowing they were expecting the full bunger Tom shrewdly three one not even half way down the track and took out the oppo’s skip leg stump as the ball was on its way down for a 2nd bounce, 0 for him. Although AT had the cheek to call this mid innings bowling attack “Like Warne & McGrath” the filthy half trackers seemed to continually find fielders as we wrestled back the lead in the game. Tom got his 3rd with another full toss borderline no ball which was spooned you for a catch to Arj at 45 on the 1 to reduce SheBu to 103-7. At this point sensing a five fer Dan pleaded with the skip to bring him back in the attack but as with all good cricketers his request was denied to allow the skip more victims available. That was until AT took the decision out of the skipper’s hand with his second “dangerous” no ball of the day (there were a few others deemed not dangerous also) to remove himself from the attack. 8.2 over 0-38, genius to avoid the -40 on the fantasy. After flirting with the idea of Alec having a second spell Martland stepped up to fill the gap for the rest of the over. The first ball was bowled directly to his feet, missed the pitch and was rolling as it reached the batsmen, the skipper definitely feared the worst at this point. To his credit he recovered nicely and filled in 1.4 overs 0-6 to tie us over until Dan could rejoin the attack.
His first over back and he was correct about sensing wickets as he had their number 5 who had batted well for his 63 skying one to AT at cover who partially atoned for his earlier drops by clinging on. 5 wickets weren’t to be his though as the skipper trapped the number 10 LBW on a ball sliding way down leg before cleaning up number 11 middle stump to deny Dan and claim the Michelle of his own. Dan managed some jug avoidance for the second consecutive week finishing with 10 overs 4-38 whilst the skip burgled 5-26 off his 9. Here is the team or part of it leaving the field -

Fate was tempted by Greenhalgh’s decision to pop on the jeans & coat at lunch believing his work was done as he sent out AT & Alec to open the batting. The sun came out from behind the clouds and at 22-0 with Alec hitting one of the most beautiful on drives you will ever see for 4 it looked a great toss to lose. But no Middies win comes without drama. 22-0 became 28-4 as Alec (10) AT (3) Magnus (0) all fell whilst Joe J and #6 was on the loo, but he did manage to get his pads on just in time to see Felix kick one off middle which brought him to the crease alongside Dan. They set about the rebuild nicely, running well and a few nice boundaries before Joe fell to some Greenhalgh style slow not turning dross which deserved to be put into row Z that he instead played past 5 seconds too early only to watch the ball barely dislodge the bail as it slowly clipped middle stump. 51-5 and there was certainly need to worry. SheBu again giving the skipper more lip telling him to go & change out of his jeans, but his confidence in the group didn’t waiver. Out strode Arj dodgy hand and all and the Middies recover was in full flow. The running again was fantastic as Dan & Arj turned 2s into 3s and put away the bad balls beautifully in a well measured innings. Dan passed his maiden 50 for the Midd, no more jug avoidance for you sir, before edging 2 boundaries straight past their irate captain in the slips which was a final nail for the SheBu coffin. By the time Dan clipped away the final runs he had 69 red with Arj managing an incredible 44 red with only 1 hand.

10 points for the Midd & certainly a game that the 4s will talk about for years to come, throughly enjoyable and Dan G a worthy winner of the Man of the Match lifting the 4s off the foot of the table & into 7th.

Here are Dan and Arj after their match winning partnership -

Dan - straight from the coaching manual -

And MOM Dan carrying his bat -

North Midd 5th XI vs n/a (n/a)
Brondesbury 4s 118ao (40 overs)
North Midd 119-4 (37 overs)
North Midd won by 6 wickets

The 5s made the trip out to Brondesbury for a friendly against their 4s. The opposition groundsman had clearly not been alerted to this fixture and so the wicket was more green than Dublin on 17th March. With this in mind, Alex Thomas (AT) won his second toss in two weeks and asked Brondesbury to bat first. Mingus and Sam Masud opened up and bowled with great discipline and accuracy. The wicket proved to have true bounce and carry and would play that way for the rest of the day. Sam made the first breakthrough with Steve Phillips holding a great flat catch at mid-off. The very next ball, Mingus had his first, caught behind. With the score at 14-2 after 10 overs, the 5s ramped up the pressure and Alfie Allen responded by bowling their other opener, who had looked tidy. A few overs later, Alfie had his second as he held a great tumbling one-handed return catch. Sam had his second caught behind soon after and Brondesbury were in all sorts of trouble at 40-5. Their no.s 6 and 7 then put on a great partnership as they played the spin of Shayaan and Danny Francis with caution. However, when they eventually looked to accelerate, the 5s managed to contain them. AT & Richard Nicoll both claimed run outs while Shayaan, Danny and Alfie all picked up wickets. Brondesbury were all out for 118 – a score that would’ve been larger had the outfield been a bit less turgid.
After the usual al fresco tea, AT and Linus opened up and made a solid start to the chase. Linus looked in great nick, regularly picking off their opening bowlers when they deviated in line or length. However, his innings was curtailed by a heinous piece of running between the wickets, for which Linus should take no responsibility. His captain called him through for 2 runs but Linus wisely turned down the second. The captain was not to be deterred and AT ran back for a second, which was never on. With both batsmen stranded at the same end, Linus was the unfortunate victim of the eventual run out. A shocking bit of cricket that this correspondent can only apologise for. AT eventually surrendered his wicket to a meek catch to short midwicket. Mark Nutall was then dismissed off a sharp stumping which brought Steve Phillips out to join Adam Frais in the middle. This was the classiest partnership of the match as both batsmen played Brondesbury’s 3s leg spinner with great aplomb. Runs flowed from the other end and the two quickly brought up their 50 partnership. Steve would eventually lose his wicket to the aforementioned 3s spinner, but the game was beyond Brondesbury at this point. Adam brought up his 50 as Shayaan played a great supporting role. The slow outfield meant it took 37 overs to knock off the target of 119, but it was a comprehensive and well-deserved victory. Particular plaudits to Adam for his 51* and Alfie for his 3-28, but this was a great team effort. Apologies again to Linus whose promising innings was so unfortunately cut short. More of the same next week!